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Atrocities at Singur, India:
A matter of rights of the dispossessed

As many as 60 villagers, including
women and minor girls, were arrested by the police on 2 December 2006 from
Singur under Hooghly district of West Bengal.
In May 2006, the
TATA Motors, an Indian multinational company, had proposed to the West Bengal government for setting up a small vehicles factory in the state and asked the state government to provide 1000 acres land in Hooghly district, alongside the new Durgapur Expressway
and near Kolkata. Desperate to bring in
investments, the CPI (M)
government accepted the TATA’s demand readily without considering the proposal.
Overwhelmingly enthused with the proposal, the West Bengal
government hastily chose the farmland in five villages of Gopalnagar, Beraberi,
Bajemelia, Khaser Bheri and Singher Bheri in Singur for the TATA project and
started acquiring land without even consulting local bodies. By now the state
government acquired 997 acres of very fertile agricultural land in these five
villages. Reportedly, less than 27 percent of the 11,000 odd landowners
have been willing while those who have acquiesced are either not living in Singur
or have done so fearing coercion by the government and the ruling party.
Fearing loss of their fertile farm land, the only source of their livelihood,
the farmers who have been permanently residing in these villages spontaneously got
together to launch a resistance movement under the banner of ‘Krishijami Raksha
Samiti’ (Association for the Protection of Agricultural Land).

I.
Violations of rights at Singur

On 30 November 2006, prohibitory
orders under section 144 of Criminal Procedure Code were clamped to prevent the
farmers from resisting forcible and illegal acquisition of their
agricultural lands. The Singur area turned into a battlefield since 7 November
2006, when the West Bengal government started
deploying huge contingents of armed police and the Rapid Action Force and
setting up camps at several places in the area. Plainclothes police informers
have been openly moving around in the villages gathering information about
resistance plans. Armed policemen have been posted in the village
squares and the markets to keep watch on the villagers’ movements.

At about 10 am on 2 December 2006, about 500 local
farmers from Beraberi, Bajemalia, Purba Gopal Nagar,
Khasher Bheri, Dobandhi, Gopal Nagar villages tried to resist
the barbed wire fencing of the 997 acres of fertile and prime agricultural land
acquired for the TATA Motors. The police resorted to
indiscriminate lathicharge, used
rubber bullets and shelled tear gas on the villagers, majority of whom
comprised of women and children. A large number of villagers were injured, some
of them critically and are undergoing treatment.

A fact finding team of the Banglar Manabadhikar
Suraksha Mancha (MASUM) after investigation reported that Mr. Dilip Das (44
years), Mr. Mrityunjoy Patra (52 years), Mr. Tapan Batabyal (53 years) and Mr.
Bilas Sarkar (26 years) had to be admitted to ChinsuraDistrictHospital with multiple
serious injuries they received in police beatings. The female arrestees at
Chandannagar police station alleged that they were manhandled, beaten, molested
and sexually abused by the male policemen at the time of arrest and while being
transported to the police station. They also alleged that on asking for
drinking water at Chandannagar police station, they were given dirty water
totally unfit for drinking.

All the arrestees were booked in two cases being
Singur Police Case nos 150 & 151 dated 2.12.2006. Thirty eight of them were
booked in one case under sections 147/148/149/186/188/447/332/333/353/325/307
of Indian Penal Code (IPC) & 9(b) (2) of Indian Explosive Act (I.E. Act)
with section 9 of West Bengal Maintenance of Public Order (W.B.M.P.O.) Act and the rest in another case under section
147/148/149/188/323/353/307 of IPC and 9(b) (2) of I.E. Act.

On 3 December 2006, police produced all 18 female detainees
before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, Chandannagar and the court
sent 16 adult females to judicial custody till 8 December 2006 while the two
minor girls – Soma Dhara and Jhuma Patra – were released on bail.

Police atrocities at Singur were also raised in the Indian parliament.

II. Special
Eviction Zones?

Enthused by the Special
Economic Zones (SEZ) operating in China and to attract more
foreign direct investment, the Government of India passed the Special Economic
Zones Act in 2005. The Special Economic Zones are virtually States within the
State where the companies are given fiscal sops, tax concession, exemptions
from environmental clearance at the cost of the country and the society.

As on 2 December 2006, as many as 237 SEZs have
been approved by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Maharashtra
leads among the states with 48 SEZ proposals getting Central clearance,
followed by Andhra Pradesh with 45 projects, Karnataka with 29 projects and
Tamil Nadu with 25 projects.

The SEZs have been turned into "Special Eviction Zones". The state governments
have been primarily allotting prime agricultural lands. The land owners are being
forced and induced to manufacture consent for approval of the SEZs.

Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance, expressed reservations about the SEZs. At the 7th Congress Chief Minister' conclave held in Nainital in September 2006, Mrs. Gandhi stated "Agricultural land should not normally be diverted to non-agricultural uses. Industry requires land no doubt. But this must be done without jeopardising our agricultural prospects. Farmers must get proper compensation when their land is purchased. Could farmers also not become stake holders in the projects that come up on the land acquired from them? Our resettlement and rehabilitation policies must be strengthened and implemented in an effective and credible manner which will inspire confidence in the people who are displaced”. While the Finance Ministry has also expressed reservations that it would cause a revenue loss of Rs.90,000 crores, the Reserve Bank of India has questioned the tax concessions being granted to SEZ projects.

III.
Development and displacement: Indigenous peoples also as targets

Until 1990, about 85.39 lakhs tribals have reportedly been displaced due to industrialization and development projects like
dams, power projects, nature conservation but their rehabilitation and
resettlement has always remained a neglected subject. For example, tribals constituted 8.2 % of the total
population of India, according to the 2001 Census. But they also
constituted 55.1 % of the total displaced persons as a result of socalled development projects.

The Jharkhand government reportedly signed over 42
MoUs with investors including Mittal Steel, Tata Steel, Jindal Steel and Power
Company Limited worth about Rs 1,69,198.26 crores since Jharkhand became a
state in 2000. Approximately 47,445 acres of land would be required for the
projects in mineral-rich Kolhan Region, which was likely to affect about 10,000
families and cause deforestation of 57,15 kms land. A study by People’s Union for Civil Liberties claimed that over 74 lakh
tribals were displaced in Jharkhand by different projects between 1950 and
1990. Out of them, only 18.45 lakhs displaced tribals were rehabilitated.

During 2002-2005 alone, the Orissa government
signed 42 MoUs with companies for proposed steel and other plants in the state.
The MoU with Korean steel major Pohang Steel Company (Posco) signed on 22 June
2005 for setting up a steel plant at Paradeep in Jagatsinghpur district in
Orissa with a total investment of $12 billion was the biggest foreign direct
investment so far in India.
The project would displace around 4,000 tribal families. About 1.4 million
people, most of them tribals, have been reportedly displaced in Orissa between
1951 and 1995 due to dams, canals, mines and other industries. Majority of the
IDPs have not received compensation and rehabilitation. Another 80,000 to
1,00,000 tribals from 50 villages in Subdega and Balisankra blocks in
Jharsuguda district of Orissa faced imminent displacement due to the proposed dam on the
Ib river.

IV.
Conclusion: Obsession must not replace rights of the people

The Communist Party of India (Marxist), which has been projecting
itself as the champion of the poor, stands exposed with the Singur incident.

Though the constitutional validity of both the SEZ Act
and Haryana SEZ Act have been challenged on 4 December 2006 in the Supreme
Court, the previous judgements of the courts on the rehabilitation of the
displaced persons have been far from satisfactory. In any event, how many
indigenous and tribal communities, the majority of the displaced persons, had
access to the Courts in Delhi
to establish their rights?

The obsession of making India an “economic superpower” has
caught the imagination of the middle class. But, India’s dream of becoming an
economic superpower has come with a price – further pauperization and
displacement of the poor, mainly the tribals and Dalits.
Cautioning about the obsession with the status of “economic superpower”, in his
lecture at The Hindustan Times Leadership Summit on 17 November 2006, Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh stated “… our goal should be to ensure a prosperous,
secure and dignified future for our people and to participate actively in
contributing to the evolution of a just world order. Size does give us a
certain weight in global affairs and this will get recognized across the world.
We will be seen a growth engine. But, this has to be tempered by the
realization that the ultimate goal is to work for rule based rather than power
based relationships.”

Unless, the rights based approaches are emboldened in
the policies and programmes, India
will face acute conflict because of the obsession with making India an economic superpower and it is the poor and downtrodden who will continue to endure the suffering.